Grenada

November 11, 2013 By Fausta

The Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean

LatinAmer The week’s must-read? This: Documents show depth of U.S. concern over Mexico violence. As I’ve been saying for nearly a decade, border security is national security.

ARGENTINA
Argentina’s Fading Diva

Junk bond news: Specialist in Long Shots Bets on Argentina
David Martinez, head of a hedge fund that specializes in distressed debt, has made an unusual call: Invest in Argentina.

“You can see light at the end of the tunnel,” Mr. Mariscal said, “but you don’t know if it’s the train coming towards you.”

BOLIVIA
Skulls said to have miraculous qualities at the center of annual festival in Bolivia

BRAZIL
Before Global Games, Rio Is Fighting to Dim Red Light. Good luck with that.

Brazil’s oil industry
Bustista
Eike Batista’s oil firm files for bankruptcy protection

CHILE
Chile’s presidential election
Cruising back to La Moneda
A more left-wing Michelle Bachelet is set to win on a tide of social discontent

COLOMBIA
In pictures: Beyond El Dorado at the British Museum

Filling the FARC-Shaped Void

No pause in FARC peace talks for elections

CUBA
Michael Totten is Home From Cuba,

That is one truly strange place. It’s right there alongside Libya under Moammar Qaddafi in the bizarro department. I’m glad I went, but I’m even more glad to be out of there.

US hijacker William Potts returns from Cuba
An American man who hijacked a plane in 1984 and forced it to fly to Cuba has returned to the US.

ECUADOR
Indigenous peoples
Death in the Amazon

Attempt to Rehabilitate Chevron Judge Gets Very Weird

Chevron’s lead lawyer, Randy Mastro, had some success this week showing that [Ecuadorian judge Nicolas] Zambrano doesn’t seem to know very much about the record-breaking decision he supposedly rendered. When asked, the former Ecuadorian judge couldn’t name key elements of the ruling, such as the most powerful carcinogenic substance it cited or a crucial scientific study purporting to link oil contamination to human illnesses. He also struggled to explain how he was able to deploy French, American, and Australian case law in the ruling, since, as he conceded, he does not speak or read French or English.

The Chevron RICO trial grinds on

Phila. lawyer tells how Ecuador case against Chevron unraveled

GRENADA
An Army Ranger Gives an on Ground Account of the War in Grenada

GUYANA
The US Treasury as the Birthright of All Mankind

JAMAICA
BBC criticised over Jamaica Inn filming in Kirkby Lonsdale

LATIN AMERICA
From Brookings: The Upcoming Electoral Cycle in Latin America in the Midst of Social Unrest: What Lies Ahead?

MEXICO
Tunnel for Smuggling Found Under U.S.-Mexico Border; Tons of Drugs Seized
The sophisticated underground passageway featured electricity, ventilation and an electronic rail system and took about a year to build, officials said.

Documents show depth of U.S. concern over Mexico violence

NICARAGUA
Sandinista Constitutional reforms will institutionalize first lady’s precepts of ‘Christian, socialist and solidarity’ via Boz

Increases government control over radio, television, telephone and internet services, including requirements for local control and data storage.
Institutionalizes various FSLN organizations into the government and constitution, further merging the government and party (which would have serious repercussions if the FSLN did lose an election some day in the future, in that the party would still retain control over aspects of government).

PANAMA
Panama Canal’s LNG Surprise to Redefine Trade in Fuel: Freight

LNG carriers will cross the 48-mile waterway 350 times a year, and voyages to Asia from the U.S. will cost 24 percent less than longer routes, according to calculations from the canal authority. The expected 12 million tons, assuming half the transits are hauling cargoes, would be equal to about 5 percent of the world’s trade in 2012, Fearnley Consultants AS estimates.

The U.S., now the world’s largest producer of natural gas because of the extraction of fuel from shale rocks, will account for much of that traffic as it becomes the third-largest exporter of LNG by 2020, Morgan Stanley estimates. With American energy independence now at a 27-year high of 86 percent, the route will boost exports to Japan, offsetting nuclear-power generation lost after the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.

PARAGUAY
Paraguay says can be launch pad for Israeli technology in Latin America
With a favorable tax system, stable business environment, Paraguay could be key to providing Israeli innovators with access to broader Latin markets, says Paraguayan minister.

PERU
Peru’s central bank sees gloomier economic growth

PUERTO RICO
De Blasio, in Puerto Rico, Finds Relaxation and Fellow Red Sox Fans

On Vacation, With Politics
Mayor-elect de Blasio Attends Somos El Futuro Conference in Puerto Rico

Is Puerto Rico the next Greece? Nest eggs could suffer

La Mallorquina, open since 1848, closed:

My grandparents used to take the family (of 12!) to eat there in the 1920s and ’30s.

SURINAME
Suriname leader’s son on terror charges
The son of Suriname’s president is charged by the United States with attempting to provide material support to the Shia militant group Hezbollah.

VENEZUELA
Desperation News and Views

Miami Herald reporter held for second night in Venezuela while covering economic crisis; he was released on Saturday and is back in the USA.

Real life: Venezuela’s Maduro orders military occupation… of electronics stores

John Hinderaker watches the pageants and posts lots of pictures: MISS UNIVERSE: A FINAL PREVIEW [UPDATED WITH RESULTS]

The week’s posts and podcast:
Chile: Left turn coming up

Venezuela burns down Mexican plane

Obama makes campaign stop, meets Coco & Berta

Venezuela: Entire medical system collapsing

Chile: Neruda wasn’t poisoned

Venezuela: ADS in the slums

Latin America: Mexico and the Expanding Hemispheric Crime and Terror Crises

Colombia: Things are about to get worse

Mexico: Templars, Inc.

Cuba: The FARC rides the yacht

Podcast:
With Jerry Brewer on Silvio Canto’s podcast

October 26, 2013 By Fausta

Remembering the invasion of Grenada

At the Daily Beast,
Remembering The Invasion of Grenada 30 Years On
Thirty years ago, the U.S. launched Operation Urgent Fury to liberate Grenada from its Marxist-Leninist regime—an operation that punched a hole in the Brezhnev doctrine and foreshadowed the Soviet collapse. Michael Ledeen remembers the shortlived invasion.

The close working relations the regime established with the Government of Cuba…showed that [Prime Minister Maurice] Bishop intended to model his revolution on that of the Soviet Union and…Cuba. The attention shown to delegations from the Soviet bloc and from such radical regimes as Qadaffi’s Libya and Kim-il Sung’s North Korea…indicated the NJM’s real intentions.

Read the whole article.

July 8, 2013 By Fausta

The Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean

LatinAmer ARGENTINA
Fifty ways to screw your country: Argentina Applies Law That Jails Hoarders as Bread Surges

Mothers will now collect welfare money instead of fathers in Argentina

BOLIVIA
Michael Moynihan brings out the big stick: Edward Snowden’s Parasites: Evo Morales, Julian Assange & More
The NSA drama has reeled in a host of global grandstanders desperate for relevancy. Michael Moynihan on the Bolivian farce, the WikiLeaks sideshow, and other yanqui ‘victims.’

Russia’s Plan Bolivia – drug wars and oil

McDonald’s closing all restaurants in Bolivia as nation rejects fast food

BRAZIL
Ever wonder why 21st century socialism is winning so many hearts and minds in Latrine America?

Custody case strands Mass. mom, child in Brazil

Getting Brazil on a winning streak

Brazil’s State-Made Crisis

Brazilian Students Dig for Corruption
Student protesters at a public university in Rio de Janeiro are teaching each other how to expose data about the city’s transport system:

CHILE
Post-Coup Egypt’s Only Way Out Is The Chilean Model

COLOMBIA
‘World’s biggest cocaine dealer’ deported to Italy

COSTA RICA
You have to pass it to know what’s in it? Costa Rica ‘accidentally’ legalises gay marriage
Conservative lawmakers voted for the bill to pass but later realised that a change in the language could allow gay marriage.

CUBA
Fewer political arrests in Cuba in June, but nothing has changed

1964 and the day we left in Cuba

18 members of Cuba’s Ladies in White resign over alleged infiltrator (h/t Babalu)

ECUADOR
Julian Ku and George Conway: When Corporate Defendants Go on Offense
How an $18 billion judgment against Chevron in Ecuador turned into a battle royal with a top U.S. law firm.

GRENADA
2013 Budget Statement; the country is broke

GUATEMALA
Gangs Target Bus Drivers in Guatemala

JAMAICA
The Shetlander who mapped Jamaica

LATIN AMERICA
Iran in Latin America: State Department Ignores Allies

Indeed, the report paints a rosy picture, suggesting that Iran’s influence in the Western Hemisphere is in decline. This narrative is contradicted by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper’s testimony last year warning about Iranian ambitions to establish operations in the Americas and strike the continental United States.

Additionally, the general prosecutor of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) bombings in Buenos Aires, Alberto Nisman, issued a report that directly conflicts with the State Department’s narrative. An intense multi-year investigation went into Nisman’s report, which detailed how Iran and Iranian agents have used their assets in the Western Hemisphere to conduct terrorist actions against the United States and its friends and allies. For example, the AMIA building in Buenos Aires was destroyed in 1994 by Iranian-backed terrorists. In 2011, Iranian intelligence agents attempted to coordinate with Mexican drug cartels to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States on American soil.

Nisman’s report painstakingly details how Iran has also been engaged in a widespread effort to infiltrate governments and public institutions throughout the Western Hemisphere. These outposts work toward radicalizing individuals across Latin America, destabilizing U.S. allies in the region, and influencing regional governments.

MEXICO
‘No me importa’: You get the feeling that the Mexican government does not care about “Fast & Furious”!

Mexican Police Chief Was Killed By ATF “Fast And Furious” Rifle

PARAGUAY
Cartes changing Mercosur position

PERU
Make sure you have your visas: Driving the Interoceanic Highway Through Peru
Ten days of hairpin turns, Inca cities, horseback rides and high-altitude villages along South America’s Route 66.

PUERTO RICO
US pledges $2.25M to help improve traffic safety in Puerto Rico

VENEZUELA
He better bring his own toilet paper: Maduro offers Snowden the world and the sun.

The week’s posts and podcast:
Cuba: The British man falsely accused of spying

Where oh where will Edward Snowden go?

Venezuela: A circus without a ringmaster

Ecuador: The curious case of the combative consul

Note to Cristina: Don’t drink and tweet!

Fukuyama on Brazil’s demonstrations

Putin, Maduro, and Snowden: A deal in the making?

Row, row . . . the Amazon?

Podcast:
The Babalu Blog @ 10 plus US-Latin America stories

June 1, 2013 By Fausta

Roundup: More on Iran in Latin America

Following up on yesterday’s post on Iran’s infiltration in Latin America,

Demonstrators holding photos of the 85 people who died in the 1994 AMIA bombing

BBC: Iran ‘in Latin America terror plot’ – Argentina prosecutor
An Argentine prosecutor has accused Iran of trying to infiltrate countries in Latin America to sponsor and carry out “terrorist activities”.

AP: Argentine Prosecutor: Iran Infiltrating Continent

NYT: Prosecutor in Argentina Sees Iranian Plot in Latin America

In his report, Mr. Nisman contended that the 1994 bombing was not an isolated event. “It has to be investigated as a segment in a larger sequence,” he said in a report summary, pointing to parallels with the case of two Guyanese men convicted in 2010 of conspiring to attack Kennedy International Airport in New York.

In that case, a former Guyanese government official, Abdul Kadir, opened himself to a claim by prosecutors in New York that he secretly worked for years as a spy for Iran when he said during cross-examination that he had drafted regular reports to Iran’s ambassador in Venezuela on plans to infiltrate Guyana’s military and police. The plot to attack the airport did not advance beyond the conceptual stage.

Mr. Nisman, who has investigated the bombing since 2005, suggested that “criminal plans” by Iran could be under development in Latin America, including Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Guyana, Paraguay, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and Uruguay.

And let’s not forget the direct flights fron Tehran to Caracas.

WSJ: Iran in America’s Backyard
Remember that botched attempt to blow up John F. Kennedy airport in 2007?

Connecting the dots, Mr. Nisman found that one of the Iranian agents in the plan to incinerate JFK—Guyanese citizen Abdul Kadir—had a “close relationship and hierarchical subordination” to Rabbini. But Kadir’s activities were supported from other countries as well. He “was very important to the plot, not only because he was a successful leader, but also due to his deeply rooted connections with Iran and its embassy in Venezuela.” And he was active in countries throughout the Caribbean, including Trinidad and Tobago; Dominica; Barbados; Antigua and Barbuda; Surinam; and Grenada. “His activity as an Iranian leader allowed him to establish and strengthen relations with other regional Islamic leaders and by 1998 he was the representative of the Secretariat of the Caribbean Islamic Movement.”

It is unlikely that either Kadir or Rabbani would have gotten as far as they did without the use of a seemingly benign activity to shield them. “The dual use of institutions controlled by the Iranian Regime, the cultural, religious and propagation activities conducted by its agents abroad and the radical indoctrination of its supporters” become operational with “the construction of intelligence stations,” the summary explains. These have “the capability to provide logistic, economic and operative support to terrorist attacks decided by the Islamic regime.”

Telegraph (h/t Gates of Vienna): Argentine prosecutor accuses Iran of establishing Latin America terrorist networks
An Argentine prosecutor accused Iran on Wednesday of establishing terrorist networks in Latin America dating back to the 1980s and said he would send his findings to courts in the affected countries.

The Economist, back in January: Argentine-Iranian relations
A pact with the devil?

US State Department: Country Reports on Terrorism 2012

May 3, 2010 By Fausta

The first Monday in May Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean

Welcome to the Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean.

LATIN AMERICA
Chávez says that Cuba helps Venezuela defend itself from U.S., Colombian malice

ARGENTINA
Argentina’s Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo accuse journalists in mock trial

Antonini Wilson dice que era “vox pópuli” que el Gobierno argentino cobraba sobornos

BOLIVIA
Bolivia Takes Over More Firms

BRAZIL
Brazil’s Fraga Says Government Bailouts, Spending ‘Not Healthy’

Lula Tops Times List

What’s Good for Petrobras Proves Bad for Shareholders

CHILE
Carta destacada de la semana: Mapocho Navegable

COLOMBIA
Colombia’s presidential election
The maths of a Green revolution
Antanas Mockus is in many ways the opposite of Álvaro Uribe, the popular outgoing president. So why are the polls saying the upstart might replace him?

Economy, Not Security, Is Key Colombia Issue

Five Colombian troops killed in minefield

CUBA
Omar Gude Pérez, Cuban Political Prisoner of the Week, 5/2/10

What Cuba can teach us about health care

The brevity of the slogans

ECUADOR
Ecuador’s President ‘Freeing’ Central Bank Funds for Citizens

Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa said he will seek to change the central bank’s accounting rules in a bid to free capital needed to invest in the country’s development.

The government is seeking to change accounting rules regulating how the bank reports its reserve funds, Correa said in his weekly televised address to the nation, broadcast today.

Ecuador, which has defaulted on $3.2 billion of international bonds since Correa took office in 2007, is trying to plug a budget deficit the Finance Ministry estimates will reach $4.2 billion this year. The president of the country’s private bank association, Cesar Robalino, said March 29 the government was using central bank reserves to finance spending.

Ecuador’s new constitution, approved in a 2008 referendum, stripped the central bank of its autonomy.

“Why does a central bank that doesn’t even have a national currency need $2 billion in capital,” asked Correa, a 47-year-old former economics professor. “We are freeing the funds for the benefit of the Ecuadorean people.”

Yeah, right.

GRENADA
Grenada labour minister proposes extended weekend, shift work

HONDURAS
Journalists Killed in Honduras: The Myths and the Truth

The egg assembly line

MEXICO
Mr. Calderon, Tear Down this Wall

Mexico Accused of Human Rights Abuses in Amnesty International Report

Border disorder

Mexican officials condemn Arizona’s tough new immigration law

Italian in Mexican ambush safe and sound
Gunmen kill two in attack on humanitarian convoy

Inside Mexico, Illegal Aliens Get No Breaks

NETHERLANDS ANTILLES
The Netherlands Antilles
The joy of six
Curaçao savours the prospect of autonomy

NICARAGUA
Daniel Ortega’s Nicaragua
The show goes on
More blows against democracy

PANAMA
Police Seize 1.5 Tons of Weapons in Dolega, via Chiriquí Chatter

PUERTO RICO
Democrats ‘rigging’ Puerto Rico path to statehood?
House votes on option for island to become 51st state

US regulators seize three Puerto Rico banks

VENEZUELA
Deadly New Russian Weapon Hides In Shipping Container

A Russian company is marketing a devastating new cruise missile system which can be hidden inside a shipping container, giving any merchant vessel the capability to wipe out an aircraft carrier.

Potential customers for the formidable Club-K system include Kremlin allies Iran and Venezuela, say defense experts. They worry that countries could pass on the satellite-guided missiles, which are very hard to detect, to terrorist groups.

Oil-rich Venezuela gripped by economic crisis

Chávez Decaffeinates Venezuela
Coffee shortages predictably follow his price controls.

Housewives, bankers battle in Chavez militia

PRIMERO DE MAYO DESDE EL BARRIO (o “así se pudre un país…”)

PSUV: towards the Leninist model (with pictures)

Chávez, candanguero

While Venezuelan militia are trained to fire machine guns to the cry, “Kill the gringos,” Chávez asks Americans to wash their butts, again:

IMMIGRATION
AZTLAN ASTROTURF – MAY DAY MARCH in DENVER

“Our Gloria” Leads our Dear, DEAR “Latino brothers and sisters” in Los Angeles May Day March! (UPDATED)

HUMOR
Revisiting the Isla Presidencial:

(My apologies: the video starts automatically. You can watch it here)

The week’s posts and podcasts:
Great news from Colombia
VIDEO: Now Chavez wants Fidel and Evo to tweet, while Venezuela’s in ruins
Mexico’s illegal alien laws
Cuban blogger sentenced to prison: 15 Minutes on Latin America
Remember Noriega? He’s off to France
Cuba: Dania Virgen Garcia and the Ladies In White
Chavez as a security threat

At Real Clear World:
Chavez Tweets!

At Latineos:
Walking along Cortázar